Significant additional Antarctic warming in atmospheric bias-corrected ARPEGE projections with respect to control run

Abstract. In this study, we use run-time bias correction to correct for the Action de Recherche Petite Echelle Grande Echelle (ARPEGE) atmospheric model systematic errors on large-scale atmospheric circulation. The bias-correction terms are built using the climatological mean of the adjustment terms on tendency errors in an ARPEGE simulation relaxed towards ERA-Interim reanalyses. The bias reduction with respect to the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)-style uncorrected control run for the general atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere is significant for mean state and daily variability. Comparisons for the Antarctic Ice Sheet with the polar-oriented regional atmospheric models MAR and RACMO2 and in situ observations also suggest substantial bias reduction for near-surface temperature and precipitation in coastal areas. Applying the method to climate projections for the late 21st century (2071–2100) leads to large differences in the projected changes of the atmospheric circulation in the southern high latitudes and of the Antarctic surface climate. The projected poleward shift and strengthening of the southern westerly winds are greatly reduced. These changes result in a significant 0.7 to 0.9 K additional warming and a 6 % to 9 % additional increase in precipitation over the grounded ice sheet. The sensitivity of precipitation increase to temperature increase (+7.7 % K−1 and +9 % K−1) found is also higher than previous estimates. The highest additional warming rates are found over East Antarctica in summer. In winter, there is a dipole of weaker warming and weaker precipitation increase over West Antarctica, contrasted by a stronger warming and a concomitant stronger precipitation increase from Victoria to Adélie Land, associated with a weaker intensification of the Amundsen Sea Low.

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Significant additional Antarctic warming in atmospheric bias-corrected ARPEGE projections

10.5194/tc-2020-307 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Julien Beaumet ◽

Michel Déqué ◽

Gerhard Krinner ◽

Cécile Agosta ◽

Antoinette Alias ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Atmospheric Circulation ◽

Bias Correction ◽

Large Scale ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Bias Reduction ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Amundsen Sea ◽

Near Surface ◽

Precipitation Increase ◽

The Antarctic

Abstract. In this study, we use run-time bias-correction to correct for ARPEGE atmospheric model systematic errors on large-scale atmospheric circulation. The bias correction terms are built using the climatological mean of the adjustment terms on tendency errors in an ARPEGE simulation relaxed towards ERA-Interim reanalyses. The improvements with respect to the AMIP-style uncorrected control run for the general atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere are significant for mean state and daily variability. Comparisons for the Antarctic Ice Sheet with the polar-oriented regional atmospheric models MAR and RACMO2 and in-situ observations also suggest substantial bias reduction for near-surface temperature and precipitation in coastal areas. Applying the method to climate projections for the late 21st century (2071–2100) leads to large differences in the projected changes of the atmospheric circulation in the Southern high latitudes and of the Antarctic surface climate. The projected poleward shift and strengthening of the southern westerly winds are greatly reduced. These changes result in a significant 0.7 to 0.9 K additional warming and a 6 to 9 % additional increase in precipitation over the grounded ice sheet. The sensitivity of precipitation increase to temperature (+7.7 and +9 %.K−1) found is also higher than previous estimates. Highest additional warming rates are found over East Antarctica in summer. In winter, there is a dipole of weaker warming and weaker precipitation increase over West Antarctica, contrasted by a stronger warming and a concomitant stronger precipitation increase from Victoria to Adélie Land, associated with a weaker intensification of the Amundsen Sea Low.

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A Joint Inversion Estimate of Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance Using Multi-Geodetic Data Sets

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs11060653 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 653 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Chunchun Gao ◽

Yang Lu ◽

Zizhan Zhang ◽

Hongling Shi

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Joint Inversion ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Mass Change ◽

West Antarctica ◽

Amundsen Sea ◽

Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

Forward Models ◽

Uplift Rates ◽

The Antarctic

Many recent mass balance estimates using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and satellite altimetry (including two kinds of sensors of radar and laser) show that the ice mass of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is in overall decline. However, there are still large differences among previously published estimates of the total mass change, even in the same observed periods. The considerable error sources mainly arise from the forward models (e.g., glacial isostatic adjustment [GIA] and firn compaction) that may be uncertain but indispensable to simulate some processes not directly measured or obtained by these observations. To minimize the use of these forward models, we estimate the mass change of ice sheet and present-day GIA using multi-geodetic observations, including GRACE and Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), as well as Global Positioning System (GPS), by an improved method of joint inversion estimate (JIE), which enables us to solve simultaneously for the Antarctic GIA and ice mass trends. The GIA uplift rates generated from our JIE method show a good agreement with the elastic-corrected GPS uplift rates, and the total GIA-induced mass change estimate for the AIS is 54 ± 27 Gt/yr, which is in line with many recent GPS calibrated GIA estimates. Our GIA result displays the presence of significant uplift rates in the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica, where strong uplift has been observed by GPS. Over the period February 2003 to October 2009, the entire AIS changed in mass by −84 ± 31 Gt/yr (West Antarctica: −69 ± 24, East Antarctica: 12 ± 16 and the Antarctic Peninsula: −27 ± 8), greater than the GRACE-only estimates obtained from three Mascon solutions (CSR: −50 ± 30, JPL: −71 ± 30, and GSFC: −51 ± 33 Gt/yr) for the same period. This may imply that single GRACE data tend to underestimate ice mass loss due to the signal leakage and attenuation errors of ice discharge are often worse than that of surface mass balance over the AIS.

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Increased Accumulation On The Antarctic Ice Sheet Due To Climatic Warming

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/s0260305500009393 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 361-361

Author(s):

Stephen Warren ◽

Susan Frankenstein

Keyword(s):

Vapor Pressure ◽

Sea Level ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Crystal Formation ◽

Climatic Warming ◽

Saturation Vapor Pressure ◽

Simple Assumption ◽

Near Surface ◽

The Antarctic ◽

Saturation Vapor

Climatic warming due to increased greenhouse gases is expected to cause increased precipitation in the next century because of the increased water content of the air, assuming constant relative humidity. Since temperatures over most of Antarctica are far below freezing even in the warmest month of the year, the increase in melting is probably negligible compared to the increase in precipitation.Oerlemans (1982) showed that this increase of precipitation would cause a growth of the ice sheet, tending to lower sea level. This would partially counteract the rise of sea level due to increased melting on mountain glaciers and Greenland, and to a possible (and more difficult to predict) surge of ice from West Antarctica.Oerlemans may have underestimated the increase in accumulation. He used results of General Circulation Models (GCMs) which indicated an increase of precipitation by only 12% for a temperature change ΔΤ = 3 Κ and 30% for ΔΤ = 8 K. In contrast, the change in accumulation rate at Dome C (Lorius and others, 1979) accompanying the warming from the recent ice age to the present was in accord with the simple assumption that accumulation is proportional to saturation vapor pressure at the temperature of the inversion layer, i.e. a 30% increase for ΔΤ = 3 K.The experimental results are to be preferred to the climate model results because GCMs do not represent ice-sheet accumulation processes well. Most of the accumulation is not snow falling from clouds but instead results from clear-sky ice-crystal formation in near-surface air, or hoarfrost deposition on the surface. GCMs lack sufficient vertical resolution to represent the strong temperature inversion on which these accumulation mechanisms depend.The figure shows that the increase of vapor pressure due to ΔΤ = 5 Κ varies from a factor of 1.9 at Τ = −60°C to a factor of 1.6 at Τ = −20°C. A climatic warming of 5 K. over Antarctica, which is possible during the next century, could thus increase the Antarctic accumulation from its present 17g cm−2 yr−1 to 30 g cm−2 yr−1, leading to a 50 cm drop in sea level in 100 years. This assumes that the simple proportionality of precipitation rate to saturation vapor pressure applies as well to the coastal regions, which is doubtful because the accumulation processes are not the same as on the plateau.The potential importance of Antarctic accumulation changes in contributing to changes of sea level argues for further study of the mechanisms of Antarctic precipitation and for their improved representation in climate models.

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Increased Accumulation On The Antarctic Ice Sheet Due To Climatic Warming

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.1017/s0260305500009393 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 361

Author(s):

Stephen Warren ◽

Susan Frankenstein

Keyword(s):

Vapor Pressure ◽

Sea Level ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Crystal Formation ◽

Climatic Warming ◽

Saturation Vapor Pressure ◽

Simple Assumption ◽

Near Surface ◽

The Antarctic ◽

Saturation Vapor

Climatic warming due to increased greenhouse gases is expected to cause increased precipitation in the next century because of the increased water content of the air, assuming constant relative humidity. Since temperatures over most of Antarctica are far below freezing even in the warmest month of the year, the increase in melting is probably negligible compared to the increase in precipitation. Oerlemans (1982) showed that this increase of precipitation would cause a growth of the ice sheet, tending to lower sea level. This would partially counteract the rise of sea level due to increased melting on mountain glaciers and Greenland, and to a possible (and more difficult to predict) surge of ice from West Antarctica. Oerlemans may have underestimated the increase in accumulation. He used results of General Circulation Models (GCMs) which indicated an increase of precipitation by only 12% for a temperature change ΔΤ = 3 Κ and 30% for ΔΤ = 8 K. In contrast, the change in accumulation rate at Dome C (Lorius and others, 1979) accompanying the warming from the recent ice age to the present was in accord with the simple assumption that accumulation is proportional to saturation vapor pressure at the temperature of the inversion layer, i.e. a 30% increase for ΔΤ = 3 K. The experimental results are to be preferred to the climate model results because GCMs do not represent ice-sheet accumulation processes well. Most of the accumulation is not snow falling from clouds but instead results from clear-sky ice-crystal formation in near-surface air, or hoarfrost deposition on the surface. GCMs lack sufficient vertical resolution to represent the strong temperature inversion on which these accumulation mechanisms depend. The figure shows that the increase of vapor pressure due to ΔΤ = 5 Κ varies from a factor of 1.9 at Τ = −60°C to a factor of 1.6 at Τ = −20°C. A climatic warming of 5 K. over Antarctica, which is possible during the next century, could thus increase the Antarctic accumulation from its present 17g cm−2 yr−1 to 30 g cm−2 yr−1, leading to a 50 cm drop in sea level in 100 years. This assumes that the simple proportionality of precipitation rate to saturation vapor pressure applies as well to the coastal regions, which is doubtful because the accumulation processes are not the same as on the plateau. The potential importance of Antarctic accumulation changes in contributing to changes of sea level argues for further study of the mechanisms of Antarctic precipitation and for their improved representation in climate models.

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An Evaluation of Surface Climatology in State-of-the-Art Reanalyses over the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-19-0030.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 32 (20) ◽

pp. 6899-6915 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

A. Gossart ◽

S. Helsen ◽

J. T. M. Lenaerts ◽

S. Vanden Broucke ◽

N. P. M. van Lipzig ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Relative Humidity ◽

Surface Temperature ◽

Mass Balance ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

Near Surface ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Atmospheric Rivers ◽

The Antarctic

Abstract In this study, we evaluate output of near-surface atmospheric variables over the Antarctic Ice Sheet from four reanalyses: the new European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ERA-5 and its predecessor ERA-Interim, the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2). The near-surface temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity are compared with datasets of in situ observations, together with an assessment of the simulated surface mass balance (approximated by precipitation minus evaporation). No reanalysis clearly stands out as the best performing for all areas, seasons, and variables, and each of the reanalyses displays different biases. CFSR strongly overestimates the relative humidity during all seasons whereas ERA-5 and MERRA-2 (and, to a lesser extent, ERA-Interim) strongly underestimate relative humidity during winter. ERA-5 captures the seasonal cycle of near-surface temperature best and shows the smallest bias relative to the observations. The other reanalyses show a general temperature underestimation during the winter months in the Antarctic interior and overestimation in the coastal areas. All reanalyses underestimate the mean near-surface winds in the interior (except MERRA-2) and along the coast during the entire year. The winds at the Antarctic Peninsula are overestimated by all reanalyses except MERRA-2. All models are able to capture snowfall patterns related to atmospheric rivers, with varying accuracy. Accumulation is best represented by ERA-5, although it underestimates observed surface mass balance and there is some variability in the accumulation over the different elevation classes, for all reanalyses.

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Climate parameters influencing satellite-based volume and elevation changes of the Antarctic ice sheet

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18542 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Athul Kaitheri ◽

Anthony Mémin ◽

Frédérique Rémy

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Snow Accumulation ◽

Amundsen Sea ◽

Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

Changing Climate ◽

Basin Scale ◽

Elevation Changes ◽

The Antarctic ◽

Grace Mission

Precisely quantifying the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) mass balance remains a challenge as several processes compete at differing degrees in the basin-scale with regional variations. Understanding of changes in AIS has been largely based on observations from various altimetry missions and Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) missions due to its scale and coverage. Analysis of linear trends in surface height variations of AIS since the early 1990s showed multiple variabilities in the rate of changes over the period of time. These observations are a reflection of various underlying ice sheet processes. Therefore understanding the processes that interact on the ice sheet is important to precisely determine the response of the ice sheet to a rapidly changing climate.Changing climate constitutes variations in major short term processes including snow accumulation and surface melting. Variations in accumulation rate and temperature at the ice sheet surface cause changes in the firn compaction (FC) rate. Variations in the FC rate change the AIS thickness, that should be detected from altimetry, but do not change its mass, as observed by the GRACE mission. We focus our study on the seasonal and interannual changes in the elevation and mass of the AIS. We use surface elevation changes from Envisat data and gravity changes derived from the latest GRACE solutions between 10/2002 and 10/2010. As mass changes observed using the GRACE mission is strongly impacted by long term isostasy, as it involves mantle mass redistribution, we remove from all dataset an 8-year trend. We use weather variable historical data solutions including surface mass balance, temperature and wind velocities from the regional climate model RACMO2.3p2 as input to an FC model to estimate AIS elevation changes. We obtain a very good correlation between height change estimates from GRACE, Envisat and RACMO2.3p2 at several places such as along the coast of Dronning Maud Land, Wilkes land and Amundsen sea sector. Considerable differences in Oates and Mac Robertson regions, with a strong seasonal signal in Envisat estimates, reflect spatial variability in physical parameters of the surface of the AIS due to climate parameter changes such as winds.

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Diverging future surface mass balance between the Antarctic ice shelves and grounded ice sheet

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-15-1215-2021 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 1215-1236

Author(s):

Christoph Kittel ◽

Charles Amory ◽

Cécile Agosta ◽

Nicolas C. Jourdain ◽

Stefan Hofer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Sea Level Rise ◽

Sea Level ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Surface Mass Balance ◽

Near Surface ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Ice Shelves ◽

Run Off ◽

The Antarctic

Abstract. The future surface mass balance (SMB) will influence the ice dynamics and the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) to the sea level rise. Most of recent Antarctic SMB projections were based on the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). However, new CMIP6 results have revealed a +1.3 ∘C higher mean Antarctic near-surface temperature than in CMIP5 at the end of the 21st century, enabling estimations of future SMB in warmer climates. Here, we investigate the AIS sensitivity to different warmings with an ensemble of four simulations performed with the polar regional climate model Modèle Atmosphérique Régional (MAR) forced by two CMIP5 and two CMIP6 models over 1981–2100. Statistical extrapolation enables us to expand our results to the whole CMIP5 and CMIP6 ensembles. Our results highlight a contrasting effect on the future grounded ice sheet and the ice shelves. The SMB over grounded ice is projected to increase as a response to stronger snowfall, only partly offset by enhanced meltwater run-off. This leads to a cumulated sea-level-rise mitigation (i.e. an increase in surface mass) of the grounded Antarctic surface by 5.1 ± 1.9 cm sea level equivalent (SLE) in CMIP5-RCP8.5 (Relative Concentration Pathway 8.5) and 6.3 ± 2.0 cm SLE in CMIP6-ssp585 (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 585). Additionally, the CMIP6 low-emission ssp126 and intermediate-emission ssp245 scenarios project a stabilized surface mass gain, resulting in a lower mitigation to sea level rise than in ssp585. Over the ice shelves, the strong run-off increase associated with higher temperature is projected to decrease the SMB (more strongly in CMIP6-ssp585 compared to CMIP5-RCP8.5). Ice shelves are however predicted to have a close-to-present-equilibrium stable SMB under CMIP6 ssp126 and ssp245 scenarios. Future uncertainties are mainly due to the sensitivity to anthropogenic forcing and the timing of the projected warming. While ice shelves should remain at a close-to-equilibrium stable SMB under the Paris Agreement, MAR projects strong SMB decrease for an Antarctic near-surface warming above +2.5 ∘C compared to 1981–2010 mean temperature, limiting the warming range before potential irreversible damages on the ice shelves. Finally, our results reveal the existence of a potential threshold (+7.5 ∘C) that leads to a lower grounded-SMB increase. This however has to be confirmed in following studies using more extreme or longer future scenarios.

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U-Pb zircon geochronology of dropstones and IRD in the Amundsen Sea, applied to the question of bedrock provenance and Miocene-Pliocene ice sheet extent in West Antarctica

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9151 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christine Siddoway ◽

Stuart Thomson ◽

Sidney Hemming ◽

Hannah Buchband ◽

Cade Quigley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ice Sheet ◽

Detrital Zircons ◽

East Antarctica ◽

Published Data ◽

Silty Clay ◽

Amundsen Sea ◽

Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

Early Pliocene ◽

West Antarctic ◽

The Antarctic

IODP Expedition 379 to the Amundsen Sea continental rise recovered latest Miocene-Holocene sediments from two sites on a drift in water depths >3900m. Sediments are dominated by clay and silty clay with coarser-grained intervals and ice-rafted detritus (IRD) (Gohl et al. 2021, doi:10.14379/iodp.proc.379.2021). Cobble-sized dropstones appear as fall-in, in cores recovered from sediments >5.3 Ma.&#160; We consider that abundant IRD and the sparse dropstones melted out of icebergs formed due to Antarctic ice-sheet calving events. We are using petrological and age characteristics of the clasts from the Exp379 sites to fingerprint their bedrock provenance. The results may aid in reconstruction of past changes in icesheet extent and extend knowledge of subglacial bedrock.Mapped onshore geology shows pronounced distinctions in bedrock age between tectonic provinces of West or East Antarctica (e.g. Cox et al. 2020, doi:10.21420/7SH7-6K05; Jordan et al. 2020, doi.org/10.1038/s43017-019-0013-6). This allows us to use geochronology and thermochronology of rock clasts and minerals for tracing their provenance, and ascertain whether IRD deposited at IODP379 drillsites originated from proximal or distal Antarctic sources. We here report zircon and apatite U-Pb dates from four sand samples and five dropstones taken from latest Miocene, early Pliocene, and Plio-Pleistocene-boundary sediments. Additional Hf isotope data, and apatite fission track and 40Ar/39Ar Kfeldspar ages for some of the same samples help to strengthen provenance interpretations.The study revealed three distinct zircon age populations at ca. 100, 175, and 250 Ma. Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) statistical tests to compare our new igneous and detrital zircon (DZ) U-Pb results with previously published data, we found strong similarities to West Antarctic bedrock, but low correspondence to prospective sources in East Antarctica, implying a role for icebergs calved from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The ~100 Ma age resembles plutonic ages from Marie Byrd Land and islands in Pine Island Bay.&#160; The ~250 and 175 Ma populations match published mineral dates from shelf sediments in the eastern Amundsen Sea Embayment as well as granite ages from the Antarctic Peninsula and the Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains (EWM). The different derivation of coarse sediment sources requires changes in iceberg origin through the latest Miocene, early Pliocene, and Plio/Pleistocene, likely the result of changes in WAIS extent.One unique dropstone recovered from Exp379 Site U1533B is green quartz arenite, which yielded mostly 500-625 Ma detrital zircons. In visual appearance and dominant U-Pb age population, it resembles a sandstone dropstone recovered from Exp382 Site U1536 in the Scotia Sea (Hemming et al. 2020, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2020AM/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/357276). K-S tests yield high values (P &#8805; 0.6), suggesting a common provenance for both dropstones recovered from late Miocene to Pliocene sediments, despite the 3270 km distance separating the sites. Comparisons to published data, in progress, narrow the group of potential on-land sources to exposures in the EWM or isolated ranges at far south latitudes in the Antarctic interior.&#160; If both dropstones originated from the same source area, they could signify dramatic shifts in the WAIS grounding line position, and the possibility of the periodic opening of a seaway connecting the Amundsen and Weddell Seas.

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Evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet: new understanding and challenges

Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.2006.1802 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 364 (1844) ◽

pp. 1867-1872 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Antony J Payne ◽

Julian C.R Hunt ◽

Duncan J Wingham

Keyword(s):

Ice Sheet ◽

Ice Streams ◽

International Polar Year ◽

Amundsen Sea ◽

Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

West Antarctic ◽

Future Challenges ◽

International Polar ◽

The Antarctic

This brief paper has two purposes. First, we gauge developments in the study of the Antarctic ice sheet over the last seven years by comparing the contents of this issue with the volume produced from an American Geophysical Union meeting, held in September 1998, on the West Antarctic ice sheet. We focus on the uptake of satellite-based observation; ice–ocean interactions; ice streams as foci of change within the ice sheet; and the time scales on which the ice sheet is thought to operate. Second, we attempt to anticipate the future challenges that the study of the Antarctic ice sheet will present. We highlight the role of the upcoming International Polar Year in facilitating a better coverage of in situ climatic observations over the continent; the pressing need to understand the causes and consequences of the contemporary changes observed in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica; and the need for improved physics in predictive models of the ice sheet.

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Global climate anomalies and their association with the mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12320 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Athul Kaitheri ◽

Anthony Mémin ◽

Frédérique Rémy

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Periodic Signal ◽

Amundsen Sea ◽

Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽

Climate Anomalies ◽

Elevation Changes ◽

Height Change ◽

The Antarctic

Nominal mass change patterns of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) are usually altered by climate anomalies. By alternating warm and cold conditions, El Ni&#241;o Southern Oscillation (ENSO) alters moisture transport, sea surface temperature, precipitation, etc in and around the AIS and potentially produces such anomalies. Indices like the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and the Oceanic Ni&#241;o Index (ONI) robustly represent the ENSO phenomenon and is used to evaluate the characteristics of an El Ni&#241;o or a La Ni&#241;a. Very few studies have taken place exploring the influence of climate anomalies on the AIS and only a vague estimate of its impact is available.Changes to the ice sheet are quantified using observations from space-borne altimetric and gravimetric missions. We use data from missions like Envisat (2002 to 2010) and Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) (2002 to 2016) to estimate monthly elevation changes and mass changes respectively. Similar estimates of the changes are made using weather variables (surface mass balance (SMB) and temperature) from a regional climate model (RACMO2.3p2) combined with a firn compaction (FC) model. Inter-annual height change patterns are then extracted using empirical mode decomposition and principal component analysis to investigate a possible influence of climate anomalies on the AIS.Elevation changes estimated from different techniques are in good agreement with each other across AIS especially in West Antarctica, Antarctic Peninsula, and along the coasts of East Antarctica. Investigating the inter-annual signals in these regions revealed a sub-4-year periodic signal in the height change patterns. This periodic behavior in the height change patterns is altered in the Antarctic Pacific (AP) sector possibly by the influence of multiple climate drivers like the Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). Height change anomaly also appears to traverse eastwards from Coats Land to Pine Island Glacier (PIG) regions passing through Dronning Maud Land (DML) &#160;and Wilkes Land (WL) in 7 to 8 years. This is indicative of climate anomaly traversal due to the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (ACW). Altogether, variability in the SMB of the AIS is found to be modulated by multiple climate anomalies.

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